ASPPB Quietly Doubles Cost of EPPP to $1,200 to “Protect the Public”

“ASPPB Will Double the Price of the Already Invalid EPPP to $,1200 to “Protect the Public” and Further Delaying Your Entry-Level Job With Unnecessary Multiple Steps APA Remains Silent and Submissive While Accepting Thousands in “Sponsorship” $$$ from Them.”

Dear Chairs, Executive Directors, and Members of ASPPB Member Jurisdictions,

“I am writing to you to share with all ASPPB member jurisdictions some important new developments about the EPPP Part 1 and Part 2 that were announced today during the 2017 ASPPB Annual Meeting. These new developments represent an important change from the original thinking about how ASPPB would implement the EPPP Part 2. The ASPPB Board of Directors, based on a number of factors, including feedback from our member jurisdictions and input from our legal counsel, has determined that the EPPP Part 2 is a necessary enhancement, and therefore an essential component of the EPPP. When we began creating the EPPP Part 2, the Board, the volunteers and staff working to develop a standardized assessment of essential professional skills thought that jurisdictions would be encouraged to adopt Part 2 as they saw fit. This “rolling adoption” approach of encouraging, but not requiring, every jurisdiction to use Part 2 once it was available is how we presented the implementation plan to all of our member jurisdictions because we assumed this would be the most feasible strategy. However, as the Board considered the unintended implications of allowing jurisdictions to choose a time frame and mechanism to adopt the EPPP Part 2, the Board determined that the integrity and legal defensibility of the EPPP depended on treating Part 2 as an essential and integral part of the assessment of competence to practice for all those using the EPPP as a requirement for licensure.

The ASPPB Board of Directors has now adopted the position that once Part 2 is developed and validated, the EPPP will be one exam with two parts, namely, the EPPP Part 1, the assessment of required professional knowledge, and the EPPP Part 2, the assessment of required professional skills. The Board of Directors has asked me to formally notify all our member boards about this important change since it may require laws or regulations action for our member jurisdictions. I will also be informing other relevant stakeholder groups so that future candidates and the psychology education and training community will be aware of this decision. I would like to invite each member jurisdiction to participate in a webinar to discuss the implementation of the EPPP, Parts 1 and 2, with members ofthe EPPP Part 2 Implementation Task Force and myself.This webinar will be offered on two dates over the next two months. The purpose of these webinars is to provide an opportunity for member jurisdictions to ask questions about the rationale for this change in implementation strategy and to discuss implications for jurisdictions resulting from this change. In advance of these webinars, the Implementation Task Force has prepared the following summary points that describe the new plan for implementing the enhanced EPPP.

1. The EPPP will be one exam with two parts. The current EPPP (Part 1) is the knowledge portion, and the EPPP Part 2 (now under development) will be the skills portion.

Given the above, both parts of the EPPP will be the licensing exam for psychologists in the U.S. and Canada. We view this as a necessary enhancement to the EPPP as it currently exists, and believe this change will give jurisdictions a standardized way to more fully assess the competencies (knowledge and skills) needed for practice at the entry-level. Again, given feedback from our member jurisdictions and from legal counsel, we anticipate that viewing the exam in this way will require fewer changes to existing laws and/or regulations and will not require any changes to our existing jurisdictional contracts. Also, having all jurisdictions adopt both essential parts of the enhanced EPPP at the same time will minimize mobility problems across jurisdictions, and will help jurisdictions defend challenges from failing candidates who claim they were not given the identical exam as candidates in other jurisdictions.

2. The cost for the EPPP will be $1200 (plus test site fees).

The $600 fee for each part of the exam will be paid when candidates schedule to take that part of the exam. Since this represents an increase in the fee for the EPPP, we will delay the launch date of the Part 2 for a year from the originally announced date of January 2019. This delay will give all member jurisdictions the two-year notice that ASPPB policy requires for any exam fee increase. Thus, we currently expect the Part 2 to be launched on January 1, 2020.

3. As of January 1, 2020, all jurisdictions will use both parts of the enhanced EPPP. The EPPP Part 2, however, should not be required for any psychologist who was licensed prior to January 1, 2020.

4. The EPPP Part 2 should be taken post degree, once applicants have been accepted as candidates for licensure in a jurisdiction, and have passed the EPPP Part 1. Since the Part 2 is a test of skills, ASPPB recommends that candidates complete all required supervised experience prior to taking the EPPP Part 2.

5. Once the EPPP Part 2 is launched (January 1, 2020), ASPPB will make the EPPP Part 1 available to be taken prior to degree, once all academic coursework, excluding practicum, research, or internship credits, has been completed for the degree for which a candidate wants to be licensed.

Based on conversations with our member jurisdictions, there seemed to be clear support for allowing the EPPP Part 1 to be offered earlier, once the Part 2 is in place. That would allow the EPPP Part 1 to be taken prior to degree. We are working on the details, but ASPPB will register students/trainees who want to take the Part 1 while finishing their degrees. Jurisdictions will continue to register candidates for the EPPP Part 1 who take it post degree (i.e., international students or others). Jurisdictions will register individuals for the Part 2 once they are candidates for licensure, just as they do now for the current EPPP.

During the beta testing phase of test development, the Implementation Task Force will be looking at information from psychologists who were required to obtain post-doctoral experience in order to be licensed as compared to licensed psychologists who did not get post-doctoral experience prior to licensure. We believe the data we get from that comparison of post-doc and no post-doc beta testers will provide valuable information to our member jurisdictions about whether or not a post-doctoral year of supervised experience should be required for licensure.

ASPPB will be offering two webinars for our member boards only that will provide a chance to discuss this new plan for implementation of the enhanced EPPP. These hour-long webinars will be held:

Thursday, November 2nd at 1:00 PM ESTThursday, December 7th at 12:00 PM EST

Please see the attached for registration information. As you all know, the enhanced, two-part EPPP represents a significant step forward in psychology licensure, and we will continue to proceed in a thoughtful and purposeful manner. We hope that you will join us on one of the webinars listed above. Additionally, if your Board or College would like to discuss these issues and the new implementation plan beyond these webinars, please let us know. We are happy to schedule more opportunities to discuss this important change with you.

The ASPPB Board of Directors and the EPPP Part 2 Implementation Task Force want to thank you for providing us with your feedback during the ongoing development phase of the enhanced EPPP. We realize this change presents significant challenges for our member jurisdictions and for all applicants for licensure starting in 2020. We firmly believe this enhancement of the EPPP
offers an essential improvement to the integrity of the examination of minimal competence to practice psychology. Further, the potential for making Part 1 of the EPPP available to candidates prior to receipt of the degree, and possible elimination of the requirement of a postdoctoral year of supervised experience based on demonstration of essential skills on Part 2, offers future candidates a more streamlined and consistent pathway to psychology licensure over the current system in many jurisdictions.”

Points to Consider:

1- ASPPB is Forcing All Jurisdictions to Use their Expensive and Invalid Tests to Prevent Opposing Jurisdictions from Buying their Product. (Unless they Withdraw and Create a Psychometrically Sound Test of Their Own, Like Puerto Rico Just DID after using ASPPB Invalid and Untested Spanish EPPP where no one passed since 2012.

2- ASPPB’s Bank Account will go from merely $10-million to $20-million by trying to “protect the public” with this tests.” More Money to Honeydick and Buy Psychologists in State Boards to Do as They Please, Without Regard to State Law Prohibiting Them from Doing So.

3- An EPPP with Multiple Steps Will Allow ASPPB To Further Delay Your Entry In to The Profession for Another Year, Provided You Pass Both The First Time.

4-ASPPB’s Tests Have No Proven Psychometric Properties, Many People FAIL, and they Discriminate against minorities and bilinguals. Yet, they plan to use this made up “beta data” to determine if everyone should complete a state-mandated post-doc for entry-level licensure. We already know they have self-serving incentive to make money from you, so expect them to come up with some BS rationale (like the EPPP-2), to force all jurisdictions (like their strategy on #1) t to force it on you all.

6-Psychologists Keep Drinking ASPPB Koolaid, Supporting their Anti-Trust Scheme Suppressing the Competition, at the Expense of the Public.

We thank all of you psychologists coming forward lately with these abuses and fighting against these cowards, And we encourage You to continue sending us Your stories and leaks. You can do so completely anonymously by sending your documents via www.sendspace.com, directly to our e-mail info@modernpsychologist.com, or any other PGP encrypted messaging that you may use. Together we will continue dismantling these cartel schemes, essentially harming the public.